Mad Maxwell: The Road Warrior
by Inanis Incedeco
Summary: Apocalyptic AU: Lack of resources and constant warfare has reduced the world to rubble, and the Tevinter tribe now rules the remnants of the soutwest, bleeding dry what remains of civilization. And now three heroes, outnumbered, outgunned and out of their minds, must make a suicide mission to protect what's right in the world.
1. Discovered

_Author's Note: This originally started as a Mad Max/Dragon Age crossover, but I don't really consider it that since it's not a crossover perse, as no Mad Max characters make an appearance of any sort. Consider it... inspired by the lovely diselpunk franchise._

* * *

"Mon Ange!" Leliana shrieked, motioning frantically. "Difficulté! They're gaining on us!"

"I know!" Mara shouted, flooring the gas on their car and jerking the steering wheel to the side as hard as she could, slamming the car into a hard slide.

It didn't help.

There was a very sudden cracking sound, and the car shuddered , lurching crazily to one side. To anyone else, it would seem like there was something lodged in the engine, but they both knew better.

Their tires had been shot out.

Leliana cried out, and Mara wrenched the steering wheel the other way, but it was useless. They went skidding as the tires slid helplessly across the road. They were spinning out of control, the desert skies above rushing towards them, and then they flipped.

The two of them were flung out, and the car landed on it's side, sliding away helplessly.

Moments later, they were surrounded.

Six men, two on a motorcycle and four crammed into a truck, all dismounted and surrounded them. Mara laid there, still and unmoving, but very much intact. She had gotten good at the innocent little girl act over the years, and they wouldn't just outright shoot a young woman.

She silently prayed that Leliana was still awake, and knew what the Warden was doing. Without her, this might not work, but it was her only chance.

"Looks like we bagged another one." A gruff voice called out from above, and Mara tensed. If she got the timing wrong...

"What do you suppose these two kittens were doing together?"Another voice, this one from a little further away.

There were feet directly in front of her head, so close her hair stood on end. "I think you know exactly what they were doing." The voice came from whoever's feet it was, and there was an almost sneer in his voice. "Maybe we'll have to keep them together!"

It was clear from his voice that he threw his head back and laughed, and Mara knew she wouldn't get a better chance. With a lightning fast movement, she ripped a knife from her belt and jammed it deep into his thigh.

He tried to scream and jump back, but she had an iron grip on his leg. Before he could react, she ripped the XD-M pistol from the holster around her hip, and fired a single shot through his skull.

A half second later, a second, louder gunshot sounded, and Mara knew that it was the sound of Leliana's Mateba autorevolver. Sure enough, another of the five remaining men fell.

One of the men had a shotgun in his hands, but no one else was armed. The shotgun man fired, but hit the one Mara had already killed. Mara lined up the shot, and fired, killing him before he could line up another shot, and Leliana cut down the rest of them like clockwork.

She pulled herself up, ripping her knife from the dead bandit, and dusted herself off before turning to smile at her love. "Thank god you were awake."

Leliana smiled back at her, loading the spent bullets into her revolver. "You would have been just fine. That unconscious, innocent little girl act?" She gave her wife a cheeky wink. "Beautiful."

Mara chuckled under her breath. "I learned from the best, Mrs. Seductress." She turned to their wrecked car. "Well..." She sighed. "It looks like we're not driving that one anymore."

Leliana shook her head. "Luckily," She motioned to the bandit's truck. "We have a new one."

"Who in he hell do you suppose those people were?" Mara asked. They had just been driving through to Henderton when these men had tried to run them off the road. Mara was a good driver, but not good enough to recover from blown out tires.

Leliana shrugged. "Probably just bandits or some psychos, sweetie. I wouldn't worry about it." Her voice was calm and nonchalant, especially for having very nearly been killed. Although that was the rule of the land, here in the wastes. Anyone could die at any moment.

She sighed, and nodded. "You're probably right, love."

But she couldn't shake the feeling that this wasn't just some random encounter. They had come out of nowhere, worked together to force her to turn, and that shot to the tire would have been one hell of a trickshot from where their car was...

Someone knew who they were.

* * *

 **Three Hours Later**

"Stop."

Leliana held up a hand, and Mara applied the brakes, bringing them to a gentle, quiet stop.

"What is it?"

Leliana pointed to the offside of the road, and Mara saw what she was looking at. There was a massive six-wheeled Heavy Truck, with a gigantic fuel tanker loaded on the back.

She gave a low whistle. "Wow." Mara turned to her wife. "What do you suppose the odds are that it's owner is gone?" She wasn't a looter. She considered herself better than that.

Leliana shrugged. "I don't know. But," She tapped the fuel gauge, which had the needle dangerously close to empty. "We're not going anywhere without more fuel." And she was right: Goldfield was another ten, maybe twelve miles east. They might get another half mile.

"I suppose if couldn't hurt." Mara admitted. If there wasn't anyone there, then there was no harm in taking some, and if there was maybe they could trade. Worst case scenario, they would leave empty handed.

At least, that was what she hoped.

Mara grabbed her G36C that she had scavenged, in addition to the HS2000 in her holster, and Leliana grabbed her Winchester Model 70, with parts replaced for the more common .223/5.56 bullets that Mara's rifle used so they could share ammo.

After a moment, Mara drew a shaky breath to steady herself, and Leliana gave her a reassuring smile.

"Ready?"

"Ready."

Stepping outside, the heat of a scorching Nevada afternoon hit like a brick, and Leliana gave an annoyed grunt of complaint.

"Maker above." She groaned, rubbing her eyes from the heat and the dust. She had known it would be searing out here, but at least in the car they had air conditioning.

"I know." Mara agreed, stepping next to her and taking her love's hand. "The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can go back." Leliana nodded, and they started forward.

As they drew up closer, the truck was even more impressive. It was a Tarta T815, with a storage pod behind the driver's seats and a gargantuan fuel tanker holding up the back end, both of which towered several times the height of the two women. The main tanker had two turret towers carved out of smaller cars and reinforced with sheet metal, and the one at the very back had a mounted machine gun loaded on the back, poking just out of the back windshield of the former car it was moulded out from. The tires were thick and strong, almost brand new, and it looked like they wouldn't be able to be shot out by anything short of a harpoon.

Mara gave another low whistle. Whoever owned this gigantic truck was ready for whatever came. The pod in the middle could hold months of supplies, and she couldn't imagine how much the fuel take could hold. If you emptied it out, you could fit a hundred men or more inside.

As she was admiring, a figure stepped out from the front of the truck, having been concealed behind the tractor. He was a tall man, with dark brown hair and a stubbly beard, wearing a heavy armoured leather duster with combat armour underneath, two bandoleers in an X across his chest. Two holsters sat around his waist, one was empty, and the other held a sawed-off shotgun. Around his waist was a sling, holding an AK-12 assault rifle.

He was holding a Glock-17 handgun, from the empty holster. Pointing it right at Leliana's head.

They lifted their guns back up at him, caught off guard. "Go. Away." He ordered with steel in his voice, gesturing away with the gun just a little, although not taking it off of Leliana's head.

Since he didn't shoot immediately, Mara figured he wasn't intent on starting an unneeded fight. "Alright." Mara said, lowering her assault rifle. "We're not here looking for anyone to get killed." She gestured, and Leliana lowered her rifle as well.

He didn't lower his pistol. "Then leave."

"Look." She hooked her rifle on the sling across her waist. "Our car ran out of gas just up the road, and we-"

He shook his head. "Can't help you."

"We can trade you bullets."

He quirked an eyebrow. "What kind?"

Mara and Leliana shared a glance, silently deciding what they could trade and what they couldn't. "9 mil, 5.56 and .38 Specials."

He shook his head again. "Can't help you. Go away."

Mara turned to Leliana and sighed. "Alright then, love. I guess we'll just have to figure something else out."

"How?" Leliana asked, and Mara wasn't used to the fear in her voice. "We can drive maybe another mile at most. And then what? We'll never make it before we die of Hyperthermia, and even if we didn't, how far can we walk until sundown?"

"I don't know." She admitted, but held her wife's hands comfortingly. "But we'll figure something out. We always do." And with that, they turned to leave.

"Amore!" A new voice, that of a woman's called, and all three of them turned. Standing in front of the truck's tractor was a woman with olive skin and dark hair, staring at the armed man. "You're not just going to turn people away to die, are you?"

"Josie," He hissed, turning his head to face her, although his gun was still pointed in their general direction. "We don't know them, they can't offer us anything, and they look dangerous."

The woman, apparently Josie, put her hands on her hips and walked a little closer to him. "If they were dangerous, why wouldn't they have just killed you?" She motioned to Mara. "Why would she have put her gun away?"

He gave an exasperated sigh. "Sweetie, even if they are just travellers, they're only going to slow us down. If the Tevints catch us..."

"We're better than them."

He opened his mouth, but no words came out. A moment later he sighed and lowered his gun. "Okay," He turned to them. "Look: Where are you two going?"

"Goldfield." He turned to face her, and met her eyes, before shaking his head.

"We're so going to regret this." He whispered before turning back to the two of them. "Alright. As fate would have it, that's where the two of us are going too." He gestured to his car. "So here's the deal: You two can tag along, but you two have to agree to help fight off any bandits that might attack us on the road."

Mara shrugged. "Seems fair."

He nodded. "Don't touch anything, and I reserve the right to kick you out if I think you're up to something. Got it?"

They both nodded. "That seems more than fair."

He met that Josie girl's gaze, who smiled, and then he turned back. "My name is Cantis, Cantis Trevelyan and this is Josephine."

Leliana inclined her head a little. "I'm Leliana, and this is Mara."

Cantis gestured to the truck's tractor. "Well then, if introductions are out of the way, then let's get going. We're burning daylight."

The back of the truck's front cab had been expanded from an old car, providing additional passenger space for an extra five people, behind the two seats in the front, and the man, Cantis, ushered them into the back before taking shotgun, the Josephine woman taking the driver's seat.

For a long time, they rode in silence. The engine was a roar, and they would have to shout above the noise. Mara and Leliana busied themselves with their bullets and magazines, replacing bullets in magazines and sorting spent casings.

But eventually the silence was too much, and Mara spoke up. "Nice truck you have here." She shouted to Cantis.

"Thank you." He turned his head to see her as he yelled over the engine's roar. "I call her _The War Rig_."

She shrugged. A fitting name, to be certain. This thing could probably topple countries when properly manned. "Where'd you get her?"

He was silent for a minute before speaking again. "Built her myself, over the years." His voice was a little different, a little strained, but she figured it was just the yelling over the engines. "Found the main Truck on the side of the road once, and I scavenged the rest of it from old scrap yards over the years."

"It's impressive." Leliana yelled.

More silence as they rode. Goldfield was coming up soon, and they knew it would be parting time soon enough.

"So who are you two anyways?" Cantis asked after some time. "I know your names, but nothing else."

Mara nodded. "Well, after the good you've done us, I suppose I can tell you a little about ourselves." She sat back in the padded chair. It was surprisingly comfortable for being built for war. "I'm Marilina Amell, and this lovely lady," She motioned to Leliana. "Is my wife."

"Really?" He smiled. "How old are you? You look a little young to be married."

She shrugged. "I'm sixteen." She clasped her love's hand in hers, and smile. "So yes, probably. But, life out here in the wastes is too short to pass up any happiness."

He nodded. "I get that." His gaze danced over to Josephine for only a moment, but Mara caught it and it made her smile. "So what are you two doing down here?"

"I'm a Grey Warden, and they-"

"Wait." Josephine cut her off, turning in her seat to face the mage, taking her eyes off the road. "A Warden?"

"Yeah." She confirmed, nodding. "We like to think of ourselves as a stabilizing force in the wasteland. We usually stay in the north, but I-."

"Wait, wait, wait." Cantis turned around almost completely in his seat, looking her in the eyes. "You better be careful." He warned. "There's a bounty out for the head of any Warden you can find."

Mara bolted upright in her char, and sat forward towards him to hear better. "Wait. Really?"

He nodded gravely. "That Tevinter clan set it up. Two Jerry Cans of gas and a tin can for petrol for every Warden you kill."

"Shite." She swore, rubbing her eyes as her blood ran cold. She had wondered why it was her specifically that had been sent down here. Had others gone missing before her?

Leliana pulled out her Mateba autorevolver and pointed it at him. "You had better not think about collecting that bounty." She threatened. No one touched her angel.

"Me?" He asked, pointing to his chest. "Those barbarians hate me as much as they do you. If I tried to collect, they'd shoot me and add my head to the pile." He relaxed in his seat, and she lowered the revolver just a little. "I hope you Wardens butcher the lot of them."

Then he made a sudden, lightning fast movement, he lurched back and knocked the gun from her hand, simultaneously pulling his shotgun put and pointing it at her.

"But," His face was grim and serious. "If I _did_ decide to collect that bounty, you couldn't stop me." Then he smiled and leaned back, putting away the gun, leaving their hearts to resettle from moving faster than the truck.

" _Amore!_ " Josephine chastised. "What did I tell you about pulling guns on people?"

"Yeah, yeah." He smiled. "Stop threatening our guests."

Several minutes of silence passed, as neither of the pair in the backseat were sure what to do after that display, although Mara noticed Leliana retrieved her revolver and didn't reholster it. "So," Mara spoke after a dozen minutes of awkward silence. "What are you two doing out here?"

Cantis grew quiet, and didn't answer for several minutes. Finally he spoke in a softer voice. "We're running."

"From what?"

Again, he took a long time to speak.

"What I've done."

Leliana and Mara shared a glance, and then Leliana asked. "And what is that?"

He shook his head. "Don't ask."

Several moments passed, and then Leliana blurted out the question. "And where do you suppose you can escape what you've done?" It was a stupid question she knew, but she also knew that it was impossible to wish the past away.

He stared into the asphalt of the road as though it had the answer. Apparently it didn't, and they rode the rest of their trip in silence.


	2. Tevinter

"We're here." Cantis declared, holding his hand up, and the two women in the backseat gathered up their weapons as Josephine flicked a switch under the console. First she turned the main engine off, leaving only the secondary one to carry the weight, and it was near whisper silent compared to the deafening grind of the primary. Then she flicked that one off too, and the War Rig came to a slow shuttering stop, even the whisper of the second engine slowly fading, and they clambered out.

"Thanks for the lift." Mara held out her hand for Cantis when they climbed out, who took it and shook it with a smile.

"Sorry we can't do more for you two." He said as he shook her hand. "But I'm afraid we've a lot of ground to cover."

She nodded, pulling her hand back. "Where are you two headed?" She asked, curious. Not that it mattered much, considering they would likely never see one another again.

He shrugged. "First, we're going to stop here and pick up some supplies. After that, we're off north, out of the Tevinter reach. Maybe up and West to Zion National, or straight North to whatever's left of Idaho."

"Are you ladies sure you'll be alright down here?" Josephine asked as she rounded the Truck's cabin, meeting them with a smile.

Mara nodded. "The Wardens sent me down here to meet with the local sheriff, who told us he has some information on the area that we might find useful. I'm sure he'll help us out."

"Alright." Josephine smiled, and gave an almost dainty wave. "Be safe." And with that, the two of them walked off.

Leliana turned to Mara, who smiled at her wife. "So, you ready?" Mara asked.

"Are you worried?" Leliana murmured warmly, clasping both her hands in Mara's. "That bounty on your head..."

Mara shook her head. "We'll be fine, sweetie. Duncan said that the man here will help us and, so long as we don't go around telling people, no one will know who we are."

Just then a man with sunglasses on approached them, breaking up their little bubble. "Excuse me," He interrupted, and they turned to face him. "Are you Marilina and Leliana?" They nodded. "I work for Sheriff Johnson, and he's been having me look for you all day."

"Oh, thank you!" Mara smiled at him, making the man give a genuine, if weary smile, back. "I'm terribly sorry you had to wait for us, it's scorching out here."

He shrugged. "This is a job that has me hunting criminals and taking part in shootouts. This is a walk in the park." He turned to face down the street, where they could just barely make out a sign that was coated in dust, above an old, rundown building that read _Sheriff's Office_. "Come with me."

He led them down the street, clambering up and over the old, long-dried fountain that sat right in the middle of the town, and into the only building that looked durable in any way, built of brick and two floors tall. It was the only one that hadn't been utterly destroyed and vandalized. Whatever supplies Cantis and Josephine needed from this place, she had no idea. The whole place was a hell-hole, and it looked like it had been even before the world died.

"What happened here?" Mara asked as she looked around the desolate town, shadows skulking in doorways and windows, away from the strangers. "Did you lose a war or something?"

Their guide shook his head. "Do try not to judge us to harshly." He spoke nonchalantly, but there was something on the edge of his voice that she couldn't quite place. "This place was a ghost town before the world went to hell. The people who resettled it were castaways from society, either too crazy or too sick to be of any use." He turned a little, stepping over the twisted concrete of the old fountain. "We've had problems with raiders and bandits for years and years now but, just recently, those Tevinter folks tried to take over. That's what did most of the damage here."

"I'm sorry."

They walked the rest of the street in silence, and he stopped at the stairs to the office. "He'll be right in here." He motioned, turning around, and she smiled at him. "He should just be expecting you." There was still an edge to his voice, the tiniest tremble and Mara shifted her weight a little back trying to place it. Most people wouldn't have thought anything of it, but Wardens were taught from day one to notice every little detail, anything that could go wrong.

"Are you alright?" She asked, shifting uncomfortably. "You sound... hurt."

His hand automatically flew to his throat, feeling it. "I hadn't noticed." He said, his voice turning back to normal. "I've been standing in the sun all afternoon, waiting for you."

"Oh, I'm so sorry." She apologized when she realized that he was right. She would sound far worse if she had to sit in the under the scorching Nevada skies all morning for people she didn't even know. "Well, thank you very much." She smiled, and inclined her head a little in a small nod.

He smiled, and walked away, leaving the two of them to enter.

Inside the office was a woman sitting at a desk with smouldering ashen hair, dressed in a surprisingly fine black suit, and two dozen other men were on the room, six on either side of them. All of them were holding HK417 assault rifles, except the woman who was seemingly unarmed.

And immediately she knew that something was wrong.

"A-are you S-sheriff Johnson?" Mara asked suspiciously. Their contact was supposed to be a man, and something felt off. She could feel movement just behind her, and she knew that Leliana's hand had slipped to the handle of her autorevolver.

The strange woman shook her head, standing up, and Mara could see the pistol around her hip. "I'm afraid not."

Very, _very_ wrong.

That was enough for Leliana. She stepped forward and whipped out her Mateba, pointing it directly at the woman's head in a threatening gesture. Feeling the movement of her wife, Mara fumbled with her own rifle, unlatching it from the sling, filled with fear as she saw the men all lower their rifles towards them.

"Easy," The woman held her hands up for peace, moving smoothly, with grace and a laid back attitude. "I'm not here to hurt you. Only to talk."

Leliana shook her head, suddenly very, very angry. They were pointing guns at her and, more importantly, her angel. "This is how we talk."

The woman made a non-committal gesture. "Alright then." She stepped in front of her desk, sitting on the top of it. "I'm afraid that Tevinter got a hold of the letter from your superiors to the late-Sheriff Johnson." Mara took a sharp intake of breath, and she could feel Leliana tense up heavily. "We wish you no harm, and I have only been sent to bring you to my own superiors, so you may talk freely."

Mara gritted her teeth. "Drop the act." She growled. "We've already been beset by you people once already. I know that there's a price on the Wardens out here. You want me dead."

She shrugged. "Unfortunate business, that. I'm afraid I don't know the details, but I'm certain you can ask Alexius yourself when you meet him."

"Alexius?" Leliana asked, keeping her gun focused on the woman. Was that the name of the person hunting her beloved?

"Ah," The woman said, nodding. "Where are my manners? Yes, the Tribe leader of the Tevinters, Gereon Alexius. He's the one that insisted we meet." She relaxed, very nonchalant given the tense atmosphere. "I know that you're thinking, you know."

"That now we have a name?"

The woman chuckled. "Oh, you couldn't kill Alexius. You'd be dead before you could even reach the state he's in." She shook her head. "No, you're thinking that you can get away. Even with twelve guns pointed at you, you can kill me, and these men, and escape."

Mara nodded. "The thought had occurred to me, yes."

She smiled. "I don't think you could, but even if you managed it, I'm afraid there's not use in it." She gestured to the wall, outside on the street. "You see, they were worried about that. I have an entire battle group, one hundred and forty-four men with me. You wouldn't make it a footstep out this door."

Several tense moments passed, and Mara knew she was telling the truth. If they tried to run...

"Shite." She summed up.

The women pushed herself off of the desk, and took a step forward, towards them, making Mara and Leliana take a step back.

"Don't make this end badly." She insisted, very much noting the rifles in her own men's hands. "I will kill you, if I have to, but I would rather not."

Leliana shook her head. "You're in no position to threaten us." The woman quirked an eyebrow, and amused smile dancing across her face. "It doesn't matter how many people you have with you. One more step and I'll send you to hell myself.

The woman smile a wicked smile. "You think that scares me?" Her grin was feral, inhuman, and Mara swallowed hard at the calm collective façade fading into insanity. "We are Tevinter. I follow our cause from here and onto death. You may kill me now, but _we_ will crush you, and all those behind you, to bring civilization, savage as it is, back to the world." She smirked and continued her maddened tirade. "You? You will be dust that my feet tread upon. No matter how many of us you kill, we will be lead to the gates of Valhalla itself!"

Mara glanced at Leliana. This woman was insane, and she was heavily armed, with an army behind her, leaving the wives with no way out. Maybe if those Cantis and Josephine people intervened with their truck..

But the thought was futile. Their deal was over, and they were busy fulfilling their business here. There was no way for them to shout for the pair, and they had no idea that they were in trouble. For all Mara knew, they could have already left the settlement.

No help was coming.

The woman took another step forward and motioned with her hand. "Now, if you wo-"

Very suddenly, a small egg-like object dropped from above, bounced once on the ground, and exploded.

With the explosion, the whole world went white and hot, completely blinding Mara, and a loud _bang_ rang in her ears, deafening and knocking her off balance. A moment later, massive pain erupted in her chest as though she had been hit by a battering ram through the stomach, and felt the world begin to run up for a few moments before she hit the wooden ground below.


	3. Showdown

Leliana couldn't see or hear anything, but she felt the movement her wife fall beside her, adrenaline running through her ears, feeling the blood rushing behind her eyes and ears.

 _"_ _Bonheur!_ _"_ She shrieked, and her blood ran cold when she couldn't even hear her own voice behind the _Bang_ in her ears. She blindly pulled the trigger on her Mateba where the men had been, the only sensory input she had being her touch, desperately praying.

Seconds later, her vision unblured, refocusing back into coherence, even as her hearing continued to be deafened. Somehow, by some divine intervention, the men and woman were dead, but Mara was laying on her back beside Leliana, a gashed bullet wound seeping blood from her chest.

Leliana scrambled, tossing her Mateba aside, grasping at the injury, and it felt like the weight of the world was lifted off of her shoulders when she felt her angel breathing, just barely.

"Mara!" She shrieked, but her love didn't answer, eyes fluttered closed peacefully. She wasn't conscious any longer.

A _thud_ came from behind her, followed by another, although not quite so loud. She whipped around, her whole body tensing like a cat. She had dropped her gun, and she knew that if something attacked, her only chance would be to dive for it.

"Easy, easy!" There were two women there, looking like they had landed from the rafters above them, and the taller one had her hands up in a signal of peace. She had short butch-cut hair and a tall, proud stature, wearing a heavy leather duster that was buttoned around her breast. The other was shorter, and had raven-black hair al done up in braids, with long, intricate tattoos dancing across her cheekbones. "We're not going to hurt you."

"That's what that woman said." Leliana almost hissed, resisting the urge to dive for her gun. She didn't trust these people who had come out of nowhere, but she couldn't protect herself and Mara at the same time. If these people wouldn't hurt them, she couldn't risk making another enemy.

The taller woman chuckled and gave a shrug. "Well, you've got me there." She smiled. "But I just saved your arse from those men."

Leliana raised an eyebrow. "That was you?" The woman nodded.

"Sure was. Wasted a good flashbang doing it too."

"Well..." She trailed off. "Thank you, I suppose." But then she whirled back around to face her fallen love. If these people weren't going to hurt them, she had to tend to Mara. "Listen," Her voice was frantic as she put pressure on the wound. "She's been hurt."

The woman nodded, kneeling beside Leliana. "I know, I saw. That woman had a .44 on her. Got your friend here pretty good before I gunned her down."

Leliana took a sharp intake of breath. A .44 magnum right to the chest, especially without her lover having any sort of sturdy armour...

"Please," She whispered desperately to the woman. "Can you help her?" She couldn't do anything for Mara, not without any sort of supplies, and no one else could help. _Please, please help her._

"I can try." She nodded, and Leliana breathed a sigh of relief. "I have a first aid kit in m-"

She was abruptly cut off by loud yelling outside, and she looked up. " **By the order of Magister Alexius,** " A loud, shrill voice yelled through the closed door and brick walls. " **And the authority of the Elder One, you are hereby ordered to surrender!** "

The short-haired woman chuckled. "Not bloody likely." She murmured, turning to Leliana. "Look, I think we can patch your girl up, but I can't do it while I'm getting shot up. We have to get out of here first."

Leliana nodded emphatically. It was no good trying to protect Mara if they all got slaughtered in here. "Do you have a way out of here?"

She shook her head. "My plan was to throw a stick of dynamite in here, blow them all to hell, and escape through the rafters. My car is over the hills, and there's no way we can get to it with all these people here."

"Damn it." Leliana thrust her head down in frustration. "Our truck broke down ten miles out."

"It will be alright." The soft Welsh accent came from behind her, along with a gentle hand on her back. It was that tattooed woman, who had silently been watching up until now. "We'll take care of her."

" **You have ten seconds to come out unarmed!** " The voice returned, and they all turned to the door.

The short-haired woman stripped off her leather duster, revealing a ballistic vest and sturdy leather cargo pants underneath, as well as a rifle in a sling around her waist, a pistol holster and a pistol-crossbow in a leather sheath. She tossed the duster to Leliana, and nodded at her. "Tie this around her wound, and get ready to carry her." She instructed, unhooking her FAL from it's sling. "I'll take care of these lot."

As Leliana fulfilled her instructions, the woman ran to the door, placing the rifle's barrel against the wooden surface, and fired blindly. Screams of pain could be heard from outside as the bullets ripped the door to shreds, cutting down the men who had surrounded the front of the building.

"Now!" She screamed, and kicked open the rest of the door. The tattooed woman was right behind her, holding an MP5 submachine gun, and Leliana followed suit, slinging her wife over her shoulder and lofting her revolver back up and into her hand.

"Hang on, my angel." She whispered as she sprinted after the two women. Bullets whizzed around their ears as they dashed into the street, slamming into the dirt under their feet and around their heads. Men were shouting, and more people could be heard.

" **Into the fountain!** " Hawke shrieked, and vaulted over the concrete barrier before crouching down, pressing her whole body against it for cover, leaving Leliana and that tattooed woman to follow suit.

Bullets were slamming into the concrete fountain, and Leliana's heart was racing as she could hear the surface so close to her head, leaning Mara against it as well.

"We won't make it across the street." The woman's voice was desperate, slamming a new clip of ammo into her rifle. "We'll be ripped to shreds."

"So what?" Leliana cried indignantly, unwilling to just sit still and wait for death to claim them. "We're just going to lay down and let them kill us?"

The woman didn't answer, raising her gun over her head and blindly spraying bullets across the square, obviously hitting some of the bandits judging by the screams of pain. "Like hell we're not." Her voice was hardened and determined. "But this is some damn good cover. If we play our cards right, we might be able to push them back."

Leliana took a deep, shuttering breath. She didn't like the odds, but she didn't have a choice.

* * *

 **Minutes Earlier...**

"Sweetheart," Josephine murmured warmly, taking the box of supplies from Cantis' hands, handing it up to her position on the fuel taken, from the ground where he stood. "Is this is the last one?"

He nodded, passing it up to her. "Yeah, this is it." She laid it down beside the rest, and slid down the ladder beside him. "Sorry you have to carry so much."

She giggled. "Amore, you had to carry it all the way across the street. The least I could do was carry it up the ladder."

Cantis smiled, and kissed her sweetly. "Thank you." His smile was warm, and he gave her a tight hug. "Come on, we should get going if we want to be out of here today."

"Alright." She smiled, hugging him back. "Let's ge-"

They were cut off by gunfire in the distance, across the street. Josephine jumped back, and he pushed her away, back towards The War Rig, instinctively pulling his pistol from his belt, pointing it in the direction where it had come from, and a second hand flew to the grip of his rifle, ready to pull that too if need be.

"What was that?" She whispered, and he shook his head just a little as it died down.

"I don't know." He took a step back, towards her, not taking his eyes off the other end of the street. He hadn't lasted this long in the wastes without strong instincts. "I don't know." He motioned with the Glock. "Let's go bef-"

He stopped dead in his tracks. Raiders dressed in leathers wielding weapons, rifles and shotguns, surrounded the sheriff's office where those nice women, Mara and Leliana, had gone off too. That was the origin of the gunfire.

"It's those women we picked up." He breathed, tightening his grip on his pistol. "You think they're in trouble?"

Josephine's mouth went dry. "Those are Tevinter men." He nodded very slowly, not daring to so much as blink away from the scene. "Should we help them?"

"I don't know." The words came slowly, dripping like molasses. "I don't know. We can go now, or we coul-"

Just then, gunfire erupted from the office door, shredding the wood and slaughtering the men that had surrounded the building, and three women surged out, running forward and firing guns at the remaining Tevinter tribesmen, before diving for cover behind the concrete fountain, the only defensive position in the town. One of them was one of the women, Leliana, and she had someone slung over her shoulder.

His blood chilled when he realized it was her wife.

They desperately fired over their cover, barely hitting any of the tribesmen. That fountain was saving them, but it was also binding them: They couldn't fight worth a damn without vision. Much longer of this, and he could see the dozens of men approaching taking them down.

Cantis knew that he should just leave now. He had a life to live, a family to care for. He knew he had to be a hardened survivor to keep what mattered to him. But somewhere deep inside of him, the bells of conscience rang.

"Love?" Josephine asked quietly, touching his shoulder, and he very suddenly made a decision. Holstering his pistol, he pulled his AK-12 off his belt and pulled back the bolt, loading it.

"Get The War Rig started." He ordered, turning to face her. "This goes bad, you drive north and you don't stop." And with that, he turned back and sprinted for the fountain.

Reaching the edge of the barrier, he paused. They were looking for him, and Tevinter tribe warriors were typically too focused and had such limited mental faculties that, even though he was standing right there, he may as well have been invisible to them.

He took a deep breath and breathed out slowly, pulling the trigger. He fired thirty bullets, until the gun clicked empty, and killed twenty-four. They jumped back in surprise at the new combatant, and he took the opportunity to dive for the fountain actual, taking cover. The fountain was much taller than the concrete wall the others were hiding behind, and he could actually stand up unlike them, forced to crouch.

"Cantis!" Leliana cried in joy at having someone, anyone to help them more. "What are you doing here?"

"Saw you were in trouble." He said shortly as he slammed a new clip into his rifle, knowing that at-length explanations would led to them all getting killed. "Listen to me:" He lowered his voice, hopefully so that the warriors couldn't hear them, although he figured they weren't smart enough to be paying attention to what they said. "If we stay here, this fountain's gonna be our grave." With that, he ducked out of cover and fired at the warriors staring them down, jumping back behind the metal cover moments before a bullet whizzed by where he had been.

"Tell me something I don't know!" The short-haired woman shouted, raising her rifle above her head and firing blindly at the line of soldiers, the tattooed woman following in suit with her MP5.

"Alright," He smiled before leaping out again, this time taking down six soldiers before being forced back to cover. "How's this for you: I have a truck that can get us all out of here alive."

The short haired woman looked at him, ducking further behind the chest-high wall. "And how do I know I can trust you?"

He gave an involuntary shrug. "Because you have no choice."

"I trust him." Leliana spoke up, taking a hand off of Mara's chest, releasing the pressure on the wound and hefting her autorevovler. "Cantis, please." She begged, looking him over and meeting his eyes. "We need help. Please."

Cantis nodded. "Don't worry. I've already come down here, I'm not just going to back out now." He jumped out and fired, but was forced back into cover sooner than he would have preferred. They were getting wise to him.

"Ma Vhenan." The tattooed woman said in a Welsh accent, touching a hand onto the short-haired woman's shoulder. "It's the only chance we have."

She took a shaky breath, and nodded. "Alright, alright." She gave a sarcastic smile, although it was tremulous. "I've already trusted strangers once today."

"Listen to me:" He shouted, before jumping out the other side and taking down several of them. They were down to a level he was comfortable with. "You two," He pointed at the tattooed and short-haired women. "Shoot out of cover."

They complied, firing their FAL and MP5's over their heads, cutting down the line even further. Perfect. Meanwhile, he reached into his duster and pulled out the special 60 bullet casket clip he kept there for emergencies. He was going to need it.

"When I yell 'now', you run like hell to your left, and you don't stop till you hit the truck." He shouted, steadying himself for what was coming. Of everyone, he was in the most danger of anyone during this plan.

"Which truck?" The short-haired one asked, firing over her head with the tattooed woman and Leliana.

"The big one!" He shouted.

Leliana turned to the other woman as she grabbed Mara, slinging her over her shoulder. "You'll know it when you see it."

For a moment, the world held it's breath, utterly silent.

And then...

" **NOW!** "

The women ran as fast as they could, sprinting for the end of the street behind them, and he left out to the right, firing with the massive magazine loaded, suppressing the warriors. All but the most foolhardy hit the dirt, and those who remained were cut down like blades of grass, and the rest were left unable to move or shoot, lest they be killed.

After almost thirty seconds of a non-stop bullet storm, the casket magazine clicked empty. Then he turned and sprinted as fast as his legs would carry him, but it wasn't enough. The warriors began to stand up in recover, and shot at him, a bullet slammed into his shoulder blade, flaring in pain even as he ran. If he stopped, he was dead.

When they reached the end of the road, finding very clearly what truck he was talking about, the short-haired woman turned and aimed down the scope of her FAL, firing to trying and cover him in turn, and Leliana tossed Mara's limb body into the backseat before unhooking her own rifle, firing in to the warriors that began to stand back up and shoot at the group, covering him until he reached the War Rig with them.

"Get in!" He shrieked, motioning to the truck wildly. "Get in!" They needed no further instructions. The women clambered in the back seat, and he jumped in the passenger, turning to Josephine. "DRIVE! DRIVE!"

She slammed her foot into the gas, both engines roaring in power, tires whirling for a moment, and then they shot forward, speeding off from the settlement.

The Tevinter warriors shouted and shot at them, but their small arms couldn't stop something as powerful as the War Rig, and soon they were away. It would take them some time to get vehicles of their own to chase them down and, for now, they were safe.

All of them except Josephine gave a sigh of relief, relaxing in their chairs as their bodies winded down, letting them realize how utterly exhausted they all were.

"Come here," The short-haired woman said, taking Mara's head and setting it on her lap, turning the woman on her back. "Let's get your friend here patched up." She motioned and the tattooed woman handed her a messenger bag she had slung over her shoulder, and pulled a first aid kit out of it.

She pulled the duster off of the Warden, revealing the wound that had stopped bleeding, and pulled up a pair of tweezers. "She's so lucky she's not away." She muttered, and dove it in.

"Thank you for you help." Leliana said to her, knowing that she and Mara would almost certainly be dead by now if these people hadn't intervened. "I owe you so much."

The woman smiled, pulling out the magnum bullet from Mara's chest, and tossing it aside, pulling some canister out of the kit. "Don't mention it." Her voice was very nonchalant even as she performed what amounted to surgery in the back of a truck, and began spraying a thick and foamy liquid of a putrid grey from the canister into her chest wound. "It's what I do."

"What are you putting in there?" Leliana raised an eyebrow. It wasn't that she didn't trust this woman, not after that display earlier, but whatever it was did not look healthy.

She didn't look up. "It's called biofoam. It'll stop infections and it'll help her body heal faster. She should be back on her feet and ready to go when she wakes up."

"Your friend is very lucky she's not away." The tattooed woman chimed in. "That stuff _hurts_. It feels like tiny ants, crawling on your skin and into your wounds." Leliana grimaced. She was right: Mara was lucky. And she was lucky that they had people who knew what they were doing.

"Thank you." She smiled at the woman, who bandaged Mara up and set her back upright.

"You said that already." There was mirth in her voice, and Leliana smiled just a little wider. It was good to know that the Maker had been watching, having sent these people to protect her and her love.

They rode for several minutes in silence, Cantis glancing out the window occasionally to see if they were being followed, but there was nothing behind them. The warriors had either given up or needed more time to get their vehicles to chase, and he eventually slumped over in his seat, exhausted. He had slept maybe ten hours in the last seventy-five, and he was ready to collapse.

"Amore," Josephine murmured after a moment, reaching a free hand over the console and touching Cantis' hand gently. "You're a good man."

He smiled an exhausted smile, chuckling a little under his breath. "T... thanks Josie." And with that, he turned around a little in his seat to see his passengers, not yet ready to pass out for the night. Leliana had Mara's head buried in her lap, and was gently combing the Warden's hair, while the other two women were sorting equipment. "So," He said, and they looked up. "I believe introductions are in order."

"Ah, yes." The short-haired woman smiled at him. "My name is Hawke. Adrianne Hawke."

The tattooed woman smiled. "And my name is Merrill. I suppose it's Merrill Hawke now, isn't it? I'm still not used to that, since I wasn't always a Hawke, and I-" She cut herself off, and blushed, embarrassed. "Am rambling. Sorry, I do that."

He smiled. "I'm Cantis," He introduced, motioning to Josephine. "And this is Josephine."

Leliana offered a hand to Hawke, who shook it. "I'm Leliana, and this is Mara, my wife."

"Wife?" Hawke smiled bemusedly. "I would have pegged you for sisters." Leliana raised a wary brow at her, cautious of this conversation, considering the opposition they had found to the idea of two women being married, and Hawke chuckled. "Oh, don't worry." She grabbed Merrill's hand, and met the gigantic emerald green eyes. "I don't have _any_ objection to two women being together." Everyone smiled at that.

"So," Leliana said after a moment. "What exactly were you doing in the rafters of the sheriff's office?"

Hawke chuckled. "Well, when you put it that way, I should really weird, don't I?"

Merrill put her hand in Hawke's lap, over her chest. "You're not weird, _Ma Vhenan_."

"You're sweet as sugar." She smiled, and met Merrill's lips. "But, to answer your question." She chuckled, turning back to Leliana. "I was there to kill those Tevinter people."

"Wait, really?" Cantis raised an eyebrow. That was most certainly convenient. "That's damn good timing."

Hawke chuckled. "Coincidence _has_ always been a friend to me." Her smile faded, just a little. "The two of us don't really have a home anymore, so we just drift, trying to make the world a better place as we go."

They nodded. "That's admirable." He said, turning back to face the road, eyes fluttering shut in exhaustion.

She shrugged. "It just seemed... natural, I guess. One of my friends lived down there, and told me about how those Tevinter bastards took over and started bleeding the town dry. So, we headed down there, when I stumbled into these two." She motioned to Mara and Leliana. "So, what about you lot?"

Cantis shrugged. "We're drifters." He said shortly, and that was the end of it, his tone not leaving any room for questions.

Leliana tried for a more verbose answer after how uncomfortable that felt, feeling like he dodged the question. "We're Wardens." She explained. "Well, I'm not. She is, and I follow her wherever she goes." Hawke nodded. "And recently, every last Warden who goes into this area doesn't report back. We got sent down here to investigate." She sighed. "Looks like we found out. We weren't the first sent to investigate, but it looks like we're the only survivors."

Merrill grimaced. "Like flies sent to the web, they just kept looking for the new Wardens." Leliana shivered at the chilling comparison. "So what are you going to do now that you know? Are you going to go back to the Wardens, tell them what happened?"

Leliana shrugged. "That depends on what she wants." She said simply as she straightened her lover's long black hair. "But I think we should stay."

"Oh?"

She nodded. "If we go, they will just hunt us down when we're not expecting it. If these people are trying to kill my angel, then I say we face them now, while we know what's coming."

"I say we kill this Alexius."


	4. Old Memories

"I don't believe I ever thanked you."

Josephine turned a little in her seat to hear the younger woman better when she began talking. Everyone else in the truck was asleep except the two of them, Mara having been unconscious for hours, and Josephine was far too busy driving.

Mara had awoken here from being shot in the chest and dying in a brick building, to being back in the War Rig from earlier, except with two strange women sleeping next to her. Leliana had still been awake and had explained everything to her, and she felt extremely grateful to everyone.

"You don't have to." She said simply. Her eyes were still firmly locked on the road, but she could see the raven-haired woman behind her out of the edge of her vision. These people needed help and, to her, that was all she needed to save them.

Mara smiled. "I think I do." According to Leliana, the two strange women beside her, Hawke and Merrill, had saved them from the men in that office, and Josephine and Cantis had saved them from the streets afterwards when they were fending off the battlegroup. "I owe you my life twice over, now." A moment's pause as she thought. "I never thanked you for the first time, either."

"I think the first time, you were still scared of him." She motioned to the slumped over sleeping Cantis, a smile playing across her features. ""I don't believe _I_ ever apologized for his behaviour, so I believe that makes us even."

She chuckled. "Well, he _did_ pull a gun on my wife."

"Sorry." Josephine turned away from the woman, paying attention to the moonlit road in front of her. "He means well, he really does. It's just that he's... a troubled man, and we've... had a hard life."

Mara nodded emphatically. "I've noticed that any time anyone asks anything about what he's doing, he dodges the question."

"Mm-hmm." She nodded solemnly. "That he does. I'm sorry, it's nothing personal against you, but he just doesn't allow himself to think about the past." She turned a little, meeting Mara's eyes. "As long as he's asleep, go ahead and ask anything you want to know. I don't mind like he does."

She leaned up and forward onto the console, lowering her voice so that the sleeping man in the passenger seat didn't awaken. "Well," Her voice wasn't a whisper, the engine was much to loud for that, but it was just a breath above the noise. "I don't know. What's your story?"

Josephine thought for a moment, thinking and chewing on her lower lip. "Well," Her voice was slow, careful and measured. "To understand that, you have to understand the world before it ended, back to when the world was powered by black fuel, and the deserts held cities that were the jewels of civilization, more people packed into a street than you've ever met in your life." She turned to Mara. "Do you know anything at all about the old world?"

Mara shook her head. "I'm only sixteen." She said simply, as if that was all that had to be said. The world had gone to hell twenty years prior. "And Leliana's only twenty-three, so she doesn't remember anything from before."

She nodded again. "That's what I thought." She turned to Mara, knowing the road ahead to be perfectly clear. "The world didn't just end overnight." Her face was grim and thoughtful. "It was hell before then."

Mara nodded emphatically. She had figured as much before, considering that, if the world has been a paradise before it died, no one would have destroyed it. "What happened?"

She sighed heavily. " _Everything_." Josephine glanced at the road, turning her head back to Mara moments later. "The world ran out of Petrol. Oil."

Mara raised an eyebrow, shrugging her shoulders. "I don't understand. What's that?"

Josephine thought for a moment, trying to think of a way to explain the old world to someone who hadn't an idea of what it was. How did she explain that the whole world was powered by an invisible force that you couldn't see or touch, but every facet of their lives revolved around it? Or that she once had a tiny box in her back pocket, that could be used to access any information known to all of mankind, and used it to look at pictures of cats?

Finally, she spoke. "It's not easy to explain." She said slowly, thinking every word over in her head. "But oil was this black liquid that powered... everything." She shook her head at the ridiculousness of it in retrospect, a black sludge that powered the world. No stranger than electricity or the internet, she supposed. "It made our fertilizer for food, it powered the machines that we used to clean water, it gave us heat in the winter and cold in the summer."

Mara's eyes shot open. "It did all of that?!" She couldn't believe it. Surely that couldn't be of this world, a black tar that managed to build the world like that. Food and water out in the wastes were scarce and rare, and the weather was a constant concern. There couldn't be anything like that in this world... could there? "And you ran out of it?"

Josephine nodded. "Now that the world doesn't have any of it, I appreciate just how much it did for us. It provided everything for us, but we used it too much." Her eyes glazed over a little, her memories taking her to a time and place far away. "When we began to run out, people started to fight over what was left of the oil. Eventually... you know how big the Tevinter tribe is?" Mara nodded, they ruled over much of the American Southwest and the northwestern parts of something called a Mexico. "Imagine some group of people ten times as big. That was what we called countries, and eventually, the two biggest ones went to war over the oil."

"And we lost." Mara nodded, the rest slipping into place. That was the way these things always went, wasn't it? Two groups of people fought each other, with one coming out triumphant and on top of the world, while the other lay dying in the dirt. And the where she was must have lost.

But Josephine shook her head. "I don't know exactly what happened. I was only a little girl while this was going on, you understand, and little girls should be more interested in dolls and books than war and peak oil." Mara nodded, understanding. "But we all suffered for it, even if whatever details are beyond me."

"I can tell you."

They both jumped when they heard the soft voice say, and they turned to see Hawke sitting beside them, her eyes shut, but she was apparently awake. "I-I thought you were asleep." Mara stammered, caught by surprise.

Hawke smiled a little. "I've never slept well in cars, I'm afraid." Her eyes remained close, but her breath now said that she was awake, something Mara should have noticed earlier. "How old are you, Josephine?"

Josephine swallowed hard, her heart settling from the surprise. After so many years on the road, she had learned to be ready at any moment something wasn't right. "Twenty-Nine."

"Twenty-nine." Hawke repeated slowly, her smile fading. "Nine years old, when the world ended. So young."

"How old are you?"

Hawke drew a deep breath. "Fifty."

"Fifty?!" Mara exclaimed, taken aback. The woman looked closer to twenty-five, maybe thirty, and an awkward silence filled the air for a moment. "Well... you-you look great."

Hawke chuckled. "You don't have to patronize me. I know the world's left me looking like battered shite." She sat up a little and opened her eyes, pushing Merrill's sleeping form off of her shoulder. "The old world's more familiar to me than the new." She looked down a little. "Although at this rate, that might eventually not be true." She thought off whatever dark thoughts had clouded, and looked back up at them. "The way I see it, no one 'won' that war, but, technically, we won."

"What happened?"

Hawke thought a moment before speaking. "The other country, the one we're not in right now, started hoarding what was left of the oil. We, the one we're in now, didn't like that idea, so we invaded." She shook her head. "So many people died in that war, and it didn't matter in the end."

Mara raised an eyebrow at her. 'So, if we won, why are we in this apocalypse? Why'd the world go to hell?"

"We started to lose." Hawke's eyes glazed over in much the same way Josephine's had, and Mara wondered if that was just a trademark of remembering the old world. "And when they started to drive us back to the States, we used our nuclear bombs."

"Nuclear bombs?" Mara asked, confused. "What are those?"

"Hmm..." Hawke pondered, finding the same problem Josephine had earlier. It was hard to explain these things without the other person having prior knowledge. "Imagine the worst thing possible. They were a thousand times worse. It was a gigantic explosive, like a grenade, only huge. And when it went off, it consumed entire cities." She shook her head. "They could kill millions of people in moments, and the country you're standing in right now dropped more than a dozen of them."

"An explosive can do that?" She asked, stunned by all of these fantastic tales of the old world. These couldn't all be true, could they? Hawke nodded. "And we just killed all those people?" Hawke nodded again.

"Yeah. We did." She shook her head. "It gets worse. You see, the other people, who had hoarded the oil, had almost two-thirds of what was left in the whole of the world." She shook her head. "Those bombs blew up their stores, and we lost everything everyone had died for. Millions of people died in that war, and we destroyed the reason we started fighting in the first place."

And then it clicked again. "And then we didn't have any more, did we?"

Hawke nodded. "Exactly. The world ran out of oil within the year, and... well, society collapsed." She shook her head. "We had built a house of straw. The cars and planes sputtered and stopped. The world's leaders talked and talked and talked, but nothing could stem the avalanche. Without our Black Gold, the world crumbled."

"We relied on it for everything." Josephine explained, having long since turned back to the road. "And it killed us."

"...Wow." Mara replied in a stunned silence, unsure of what to say in response.

"Hey," Hawke said after a moment. "Didn't cars use oil too?" Josephine nodded her head. "How is this one running? How have I seen so many cars even all these years later?"

Josephine shrugged. "Most cars these days just go without it. Does terrible, terrible things to the engine. But this," She tapped the fuel gauge. "The War Rig runs on an engine that people made after the world died, specifically not to use oil."

"Oh?" Hawke smiled, looking intrigued. "What's it used instead?"

She shook her head. "You do _not_ want to know."

"Oh, come on." Hawke teased, leaning in. "I'm curious."

"Fine." Josephine shook her head. "It uses dead animal fat."

"Ew!" Mara cried out, before clapping a hand over her mouth in realization that there were sleeping people in the car next to her.

"I warned you."

Several minutes passed in silence, before Mara spoke up. "So, what did all of that have to do with you and Cantis?"

"Ah," Josephine blushed a little, grateful she had turned back so that no one could see her. "Right. Well, you see... he was one of the soldiers that we sent to war. He saw... terrible things while he was there. His friends and family were killed, and he himself was horribly, horribly injured, to the point where they sent him home because he couldn't fight anymore. When we destroyed the oil that he had suffered so much to save, that twisted the knife even deeper."

"I'll bet." Mara murmured, reflecting on that. To see so much death and suffering, only to have it rendered pointless...

The driver nodded. "When civilization fell, only those willing to scavenge, those brutal enough to pillage, survived." She turned a little to the sleeping man, imagining the pain he must have suffered. "He was one of them."

"Oh."

Josephine shook her head. "I'm afraid it gets worse. You see, one day he lost a gunfight, but one of the Tevinter tribesmen saved him from death's door, having seen how well he fought and how easily he scavenged what he needed." She shook her head again. "When you were fighting them, did you notice that they weren't... terribly smart?"

Mara nodded. They were clearly untrained, but there was a certain... single-mindedness from what she had seen. Except for that woman who had talked to them, they had barely made anything beyond grunts, and were extremely inaccurate from what she had seen. Also, they might have thought to go and get their trucks to flush them out of the fountain, instead of just sitting their like idiots.

"From what I understood, Tevinter was founded when someone, maybe Alexius, took over a massive settlement in Arizona to see if he could find people who would help him scavenge, and almost everyone volunteered." She turned back to Mara. "Except he needed them to be utterly loyal to him, whether to know they wouldn't turn on him, or out of some sick sense of control, I don't know. So, he decided to break them."

Mara quirked an eyebrow. "And how, pray tell, did he do to accomplish that?"

Josephine shook her head. "I don't know exactly, but I doubt it was hard. They were people completely without culture, no books, music, internet..." She remembered who she as talking to, and shook her head apologetically. "All they had was the detritus of the past, and I'm sure it wasn't hard."

"That's horrible." Hawke called out, and the other two women nodded in agreement.

"It was." Josephine concurred. "And he wasn't the one who did it." She reached her hand over the console, and touched Cantis' hand as gently as she knew how. "It was him."

"Him?" Mara asked in disbelief, and Josephine nodded. "He... broke these people, brainwashed them to the Tevinter cause?"

"Please," Josephine pleaded, turning to her. "Don't judge him too harshly."

"These are the sorts of things I joined on with the Wardens to stop!" Her voice wasn't a shout, or a yell, but more an angry whisper over the engine.

Hawke put a hand on her shoulder. "This is a past-tense story." She said quietly and calmly. "Wait for the end."

"Thank you." Josephine said, her tone serious and grim. "He built the War Rigs, educated the settlers and the children, took care of people..." She turned to Mara. "He did some bad things, none of us will deny that. But he did good too, and he was happy."

"So what happened?" Mara asked, calming down a little, reserving judgement for when she was done hearing the story.

Josephine gave a heavy sigh. "I did."

Hawke laughed. "Girl problems, I see?" Josephine smiled at that, in spite of how serious the topic was. "Most common problem in the world, even after the world ends."

"Oh, do be quiet." Josephine scolded even with a smile across her face. "The truth is a little more more complicated than that." She bit her lip, thinking. "I worked as a cook for the Tevinter people for a long time. One day, I guess he must have done something that pleased Alexius who also must have thought me a... prize, because he ordered me to... take an hour of my time for him."

"That's horrible!" Mara enthused, sitting up, completely enraptured with the story. Whatever he may have done, this was fascinating to hear, especially if it taught her anything about their enemy. "What did you do?"

She shrugged, her eyes firmly on the road, and Mara thought that might be for her benefit as much as theirs considering what painful memories this must be dragging up. "What could I do? The idea was... revolting, something I never would have considered, but I didn't have a choice. Without them, I'd have nowhere to go, nowhere to get food and water. I... had to do it."

"I'm sorry." Hawke murmured sympathetically. "How did you go from... that, to being together?"

A smile playing against Josephine's lips. "If it had been anyone else, it would _not_ have, I can assure you. But he... wasn't interested. Apparently it was all Alexius' idea, and had simply assumed that he wanted this. You see, he's... a terrible romantic, but not interested in... you know." She turned back and smiled. "Alexius would kill me if he walked out, so we just sat and talked for an hour." She reached over, and touched his hand, very gently so as not to wake him up, looking at his scarred and burned face with admiration. "And I found just what a charming, kind man he was."

Mara and Hawke both smiled too at she sheer love in her face. "If you ever have kids," Mara teased. "That's going to be one hell of a 'how I met your mother' story."

The smiled melted from Josephine's face, and she looked back to the road, taking her hand back, and Mara's veins filled with ice at that. What had she said wrong?

"Yes, well." She said after a moment, her voice totally normal, but Mara knew she had said something wrong. "In any case, Alexius must have figured he _enjoyed_ our time together, because he ordered me to set aside more of my time for Cantis, and then more the next week, and more, until eventually I just began seeing him of my own accord, realizing he was my only friend." She looked down and blushed. "Eventually, he told me _'I love you'_."

"Aww." Hawke smiled, leaned forward and clapped her on the shoulder. "And what'd you say?"

She smiled so far they all thought her face might crack open at any moment. "I love you too." Hawke laughed, and Mara smiled even wider, a hand slipped and touching her wife's leg. "Unfortunately," Her smiled faded a bit, although it still remained dancing across her face. "That's where it all went wrong."

"Oh yeah?" Hawke's voice was less jovial to coincide with the lower mood. "And what happened?"

Josephine shook her head. "Alexius found out about us, somehow, and forbid him from ever seeing my again, and he... send someone to kill me."

Mara shook her head. Of course he had. "That's awful."

"Whoever it was he sent, came up dressed in armour, a knife in his hand. Before I could so much as scream, Cantis came from behind him, tackling him to the ground and killing him on his own blade. He told me that he couldn't just let me die, and asked for me to run away with him. Knowing I didn't have another option, that we would both die for this, I agreed."

"And you've been running ever since."

She nodded. "We stole one of the War Rigs, and we ran for it. God, we must have killed a hundred people trying to get out of there." There was remorse in her tone. None of them liked killing, but she seemed to have a special disdain for it.

"War Rigs?" Mara asked, putting an emphasis on the plural. "There's more than one?"

Josephine nodded again. "They were his pet project." He gestured to Cantis. "There's three of them in total, counting this one. We stole the best one."

"Shite." Mara swore. Their plan was to attack Tevinter, and she did _not_ need to face down one of these in battle, even if they had one of their own.

"We'll be fine." Hawke assured her, laying a hand on her shoulder, knowing how much the thought must discomfort the young woman. "He built them, didn't he? We'll tear 'em apart if we have to." Mara rubbed her forehead, and nodded. There wasn't any point to worrying about it right now, and Cantis wasn't awake to tell her how, or if, they could take another one down. "So what happened next?" Hawke asked, trying to break the silence and keep everyone comfortable.

Josephine looked down a little. "There's more to the story." She led on. "But, you can't mention it to anyone else. At all." They both nodded, and leaned in so she wouldn't heave to speak as loud, lest someone hear her. "Listen." Her voice was almost smaller than the engine's roar, and they strained to hear her. "A while back, the two of us tried to settle down in a settlement, west of here."

They both nodded, knowing that this part of the story, judging from her tone and the seriousness with which she warned them, that they shouldn't speak up.

"We had a child. A little boy."

"Wait, really?" Mara ignored her earlier intuition, not having expected that. Josephine nodded. "But I thought he... you know, didn't want to touch you."

Josephine thought for a moment. "Yes," The word was slow, careful. "He hasn't been interested in sex before, it's true, but I... wanted it, and he wasn't _adverse_ to the idea. He just didn't want to actively seek it out. For him it was like going for a walk, or out on a date. It was something to make _me_ happy, not for his sake."

"Oh." Mara nodded, and remembered she should keep quiet.

"Life was perfect." Her voice was just the tiniest bit more ragged now, so small that they wouldn't have heard it if they weren't listening so intently. "But eventually they came for us." She could feel their eyebrows raise in the unspoken question. "We were... away, at the store, when they showed up." She sighed, her eyes fluttering shut. "They burned our house down, with our baby boy still inside."

"Oh my god." Mara whispered urgently, leaning up and throwing her arms around their driver. "Josephine, I'm so sorry."

She shook her head repeatedly. "It's fine. He was... only just a little boy, not even old enough to open his eyes. It... wasn't too awfully hard to move on, at least for me." She shook her head again, very slowly. "But not for him. He loved our little guy so much..." Josephine patted his hand. "And it still hurts him to this day to hear any mention of children." She gave a heavy sigh. "And that's our story, I suppose."

"That's, uh..." Hawke trailed of a little, unsure of the proper words. "Damn."

Josephine smiled at her. "You did ask, after all."

She nodded. "Fair enough."

She looked back at the two of them. "So, I've rambled enough on us. What's your story?"

Mara laughed. "After you, my life will seem quite dull."

"That's a good thing."

"Fair enough." She smiled. "My parents got killed in a riot when I was, what, eight, nine? After that, I basically, I decided there was too much evil in this world. So, I followed the Wardens."

"Who are?" Hawke asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Hmm." Mara thoguth for a moment. "You see, the Wardens are a stabilizing force in the Wastes, at least out in the west, near what they call California, for some reason. They kill criminals, and help out their communities."

Josephine nodded. "I'd met a Warden once. Nice man. All he ever wanted was peace and stability."

Mara nodded. "That's all we want. They've sent me down south before, but never this far."

"And how about you and that redhead girl?"

She smiled, and laughed, touching Leliana's leg while she slept. "Oh, my dear, sweet Leliana." She shook her head, a blush dancing across her cheekbones. "We met back in California, where she was singing at some club or other. She has a lovely voice..."

Hawke threw her head back and laughed when she heard the love in her voice. It filled her heart that such sweetness still existed, even in this hell.

"I talked to her about her music, and where she lear-"

"Wait." Hawke cut her off, raising a hand. Mara looked at her for her question, but she was looking away, listening to something intently. "Listen."

Distantly, drums were beating. War drums.

She turned, looking out the car's rear window, and around the fuel tanker. In the distance, dozens of cars were moving in a horde.

"Wake up!" Hawke shouted, pushing Merrill while Josephine and Mara woke the others. "Wake up!"

"Ready up for war!"


End file.
